With the beating of your heart all the way up in your throat you rushed out the door, the pistol pushed into the back of your pants.

It was strange to feel the cold metal and plastic rub against your skin once again. It send shivers down your spine to remember how it felt to push it back into the hem of your pants after firing a shot. You'd never forget the heat, the feeling of being bitten and burned.

Your body was still marked by those moments. Memories of past times and dirty work.

Even though there was a bug planted underneath your bed, you couldn't leave the boys out on their own.

Sweat covered your forehead as you reached the last step of the driveway.

Before you opened a land of nothing but red stones and dried out plants. Huge mountains reached up into the sky. There wasn't a proper street, just a way that had been used to often it looked like a path.

Your eyes jumped through the distance.

A warm, dry wind chased sand across the land. There was a bunny hiding underneath some cactus.

No sign of the boys.

"Would have been too easy.", one last time you threw a glance over your shoulder back to the house and then rushed on, down the road.

If the boys had followed the road they couldn't have made it far. It was a long path, with nothing to see left and right, and only a mountain that wrapped around the farm like a protective wall.

Perhaps they had wandered off to climb up and have a sight seeing. Either way, you would still be able to catch up with them.

With bated breath and your teeth clenched you walked down the road. Your hands were shaking.

Somehow, nothing of this felt right. It was as if you were trapped in a dream, a nightmare rather. Every step felt like two steps back. Every breath burned in your lungs even though you weren't exhausted.

Was this how panic felt like?

It had been so long ever since you had felt this kind of feeling. For the longest time you had been used to the most cruelest of things so that fear wasn't a thing to you anymore.

But this was different.

These kids were something you came to love. There was nothing that compares to it. Alejandro, perhaps, but he was something totally different. He was a soulmate. Or your entire soul all together.

Your mouth wanted to call out for the boys, but your brain refused to scream anything into the open of the desert. If someone who wasn't supposed to would hear it it would be like a request to shoot you down like defenceless prey.

You were already a good bit away from the farm as a movement caught your attention. As if struck by lightning you stopped in your tracks, tore your head around and watched how two boys disappeared between large rocks.

"Estos pequeños..!", you growled and rushed after them. "Julio! Moro?"

You caught a glimpse of a head full of black locks. It was definitely one of the boys. But even though you chased after them like a lunatic, calling out for them, they just kept walking.

Underneath your feet a small hiking trail formed. It led up the inside of the mountain, through walls of red stone and naked branches.

It was irritating but for some reason the two kids managed to slip away every time you caught up to them. As if they waited for you to get closer only to run.

Annoyed, you squeezed through a gap between two rocks and found yourself on a plateau that was located at the other side of the mountain. It wasn't high, but high enough to break a few bones when falling.

You looked around.

And indeed, the boys stood in front of a tree, Julio on top of Moro's shoulders. His little arms were stretched all the way, desperately trying to reach one of the round fruits that adored the branches.

With your eyebrows drawn together, you approached them, but hesitated to burst out with anger as you noticed that they both had their ears covered by headphones.

You recognised them. They belonged to Alejandro's equipment.

Carefully as to not startle them, you took a step back and slid into their field of vision.

Surprised, Moro noticed you. A grin appeared on his face.

Julio slipped on his shoulders. Struck by surprise, he grabbed the branch that was closest and started to scream as if someone had stabbed him while his feet dangled in the air.

"He's such a baby.", Moro chuckled and let him dangle for a bit.

You had to take a deep breath before you helped Julio set his feet back on the ground.

"What are you two doing here?", you asked the older boy with a serious look on your face. "You know you're not supposed to go further than the fence."

With a sorry look, Julio pulled in his head and hid behind his brother. He was a shy little boy, very scared of almost everything.

No, scared wasn't the right word. Just like why child that you and Alejandro had taken in he had lost his family thanks to poverty or the abuse of the narcos that kept this country in a chokehold. Sometimes it was even both.

Julio had seen narcos burst into his home and kill his father for owning them forty bucks. He had never seen his mother after that again.

He wasn't scared. He was traumatised.

"I wanted to pick some oranges for Niña.", he muttered and pointed up into the tree. "Moro just wanted to help."

"I didn't want him to go on his own.", Moro tried to defend his action.

"You could have held him back."

"I'm sorry..."

"It's fine... Things happen.", a sigh left your lips. "But why are you two wearing headphones?"

"Julio was scared.", Moro shrugged and kicked away a stone.

You frowned.

"Of what?", you looked at the small boy.

"The gunshots.", Julio mumbled.